


A Fire Escape Symphony

by phantomreviewer



Category: The Book of Mormon - Parker/Stone/Lopez
Genre: Fire, Gen, Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Minor Injuries, Pre-Relationship, Self-Sacrifice
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-05
Updated: 2016-09-05
Packaged: 2018-08-13 07:08:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,146
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7967230
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/phantomreviewer/pseuds/phantomreviewer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>And you, with your new born eyes,</i>
  <br/>
  <i>Have you ever loved a man like I love him?</i>
  <br/>
  <i>Do you hurt but still feel alive, like never before?</i>
</p>
<p>Connor has never had fire marshal training, the Missionary Training Center had focused on how to engage ill at ease people in conversations about religion, or about proper attire and social cues. They hadn’t taught what to do in the case of disaster. Perhaps, thinking back on their mission, they should have done.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Burning Down

**Author's Note:**

> Title from the Nerina Pallot song 'Sophia,' which is the song that would play over this scene if it were projected in slow motion and dramatic sepia tones.
> 
> This fic comes about from remembering that my favourite trope is Person A running into a burning building for Person B, and so I wrote it. 
> 
> Thanks again, and as ever, to slightlytookish for the beta job!

The fire crackles like paper in the dry evening. There probably are papers burning too, but it is the flames dancing up the sides of the Mission Hut which concern Connor first and foremost.

He may be liable to panic, at even the most innocuous of situations, but for once Connor has to take charge and most importantly of all, stay calm.

This mission may not have succeeded in helping the souls of his fellow Elders, the men – boys, really – under his duration, although he has no more experience of responsibility or faith or management than any of them – in fact, are they still Mormon missionaries? Will Heavenly Father understand?  Will the Church?

But he has a responsibility for their bodies. For their lives.

And the Mission Hut is burning.

For a fraction of a moment there is static where Connor’s thoughts should be. This is a Hell Dream. This is the punishment for who he is coming out onto those that he loves, what he loves, his life as he knows it is burning.

But he has to stay calm. Someone has to take control. That is his responsibility, his duty. He is the District Leader, and he will lead.

Not for the first time, Connor curses the regulation white shirt and ties that the Elders have to wear, or at least, have chosen to continue wearing as they make their first baby steps into the world as something not quite Mormons and not quite heathens, because Connor is finding it difficult to check that everyone's out of the building.

Elder Michaels was the first out, and so when Connor reaches him it is Michaels who becomes the focal point.

“Everyone towards Elder Michaels!” Connor can hardly hear his own voice at all, but the other Elders seem to, and it is Church and Davis who stagger out next, arms around each other and hacking coughs.

There is only one entrance and exit into the Mission Hut, only a single door for Connor to keep a watchful eye on. He’s standing too close, and he knows it. He should be further back. But he can’t step away, and he can’t step inside. So he hurries and counts and tries to hold his panic deep inside.

“Three, four… hurry, hurry now, to Elder Michaels!”

They need to be nine. Once they are nine Connor can start to think forward.

“Six… seven.”

Arnold Cunningham is the last one out, carrying armfuls of papers – the future of The Book, some of them are smoking faintly, and Connor can’t be frustrated with him for bringing the fire out with him, he cannot afford to focus until everyone is safe – and is panicking. Arnold panics wordlessly and ineloquently, and Connor has to turn his focus onto making sure everyone is there.

“One two, three, four,” he coughs, the smoke finally tickling his lungs. His shirt is still perfectly white, it looks so clean in contrast to how he feels.

No one looks burnt, thank Heavenly Father, there’s coughing and spluttering and Elder Neeley is being sick behind a bush. Whether that’s anxiety or fear or a reaction to the smoke Connor has no way of knowing.

The hut is beyond the outskirts of the village, and half an hour walk from Gotswana’s medical practice.

There’s a small bag of medical supplies in Connor’s office.

“Five, six, seven, eight… Eight.”

There are only eight men standing huddled together outside, lit up in the flames and looking oh so very young. Connor stands apart.

Connor only knows one man foolhardy enough to risk himself to help others like that.

He is responsible for their welfare, they are his district, they are his Elders and they are his friends.

It’s _Kevin_.

He’s moving before he can stop himself, before he’s even aware that he hasn’t made it to nine he is inside.

It’s hot. The heat hits him immediately, and it isn’t the heat of Uganda, the heat of new beginnings and stranger times. No, it is the heat of the Hell Dreams, and again, Connor stands frozen for only a moment – the hairs rising at the back of his neck, expecting Satan. Before it passes. He cannot afford to dally, and cannot afford not to be present in this moment. This moment is life and death. Not only his own death. Not only his own life.

On the positive, the Mission Hut is a small building: only one storey, five bedrooms, a bathroom, a kitchen and the shared living quarters which includes the tiny cupboard office that Connor has been using. On the downside, it’s all made of wood.

Connor has never had fire marshal training, the Missionary Training Center had focused on how to engage ill at ease people in conversations about religion, or about proper attire and social cues. They hadn’t taught what to do in the case of disaster. Perhaps, thinking back on their mission, they should have done.

Connor pulls his shirt collar up over his nose, to try and escape the smoke. He’d taken his tie off earlier in the day, so that least that doesn’t impede his breathing. His shirt does little to counter the rough heat burning the back of his throat. Or the smoke.

He can’t see Kevin, he can’t see anything.

He’s coughing almost frantically and his throat hurts. Everything is piling on top of each other, exacerbated by the crackling and the burning and the threat of the wooden ceiling overhead to cave in and leave him trapped and alone and burning. He has a headache, feels sick and dizzy and Connor should get out, but he needs to find Kevin. Kevin is too pretty to die.

He can’t let Kevin be alone in here, Kevin has suffered enough already, and Connor had been responsible.

Kevin finds him.

Strong damp arms wrap around his shoulder and lead him out of the burning light and into the darkness.

The outside is dry, except for the sweat pouring from Connor’s shoulders and face, the outside is cool apart from the burning heat emitting from what once was their place of safety and sanctuary, the outside is well, except for the blood that Connor coughs up. Up, over the collar of his shirt and onto the dusty ground before Kevin pulls the collar of his shirt down.

Buttons pop and Connor isn’t embarrassed or ashamed, until he is.

Kevin rubs his back. Kevin. Safe and present, and more put together than Connor is. Better at doing things than Connor is. Better than Connor. He shouldn’t be allowing this.

“You don’t have to do that if you’re uncomfortable,” he says, unable or unwilling to move from Kevin’s comforting hand.

“I’m not,” Kevin says. But he still stops and walks away.

He's done more than enough already. Connor shouldn’t feel an ache. He should concentrate on the rasp of his throat and the twisting in his gut. What are they going to do now?

Hours or seconds later Gotswana is kneeling in front of him, pushing something – an oxygen mask – onto his face. He thinks that Gotswana is speaking, but the hiss of the canister and the cold breeze in his mouth overwhelm all of his senses.

Gotswana must realise this, because he turns his attention to Poptarts, who is sitting – slightly singed, but still smiling – near. Connor is so grateful for his mission companion in that moment, while he remembers how to breathe.

The air is so cool and fresh and Connor wants to gulp it all in as though he was drowning, not burning. But Poptarts does long ago learnt breathing exercises with him, while Kevin helps to spearhead the firefighting operation.

He brought the village, Kevin saw the flames and brought the village. Poptarts tells him, once Connor knew how to distinguish the crackling in his mind from the crackling in reality, and the sloshing of water and gentle patter of soil masking the last of the fires.

“He got here just as you ran in,” Poptarts finishes, still gesturing the times for Connor to inhale and exhale with his hands as he speaks. “He poured a bucket of water over himself, wrapped his tie around his mouth and went in after you.”

The first word Connor says, after the world stops burning is, “oh.”


	2. Burning Up

Kevin had been prepared for few things on his mission in Uganda. He hadn’t been prepared for the heat. He hadn’t been prepared to acknowledge his doubts, to leave the Church, to try and change the mind of a crazy warlord, hadn’t expected to leave the Church and help to start a new religion, hadn’t expected to be able to forgive the warlord, or Arnold, or himself.

He hadn’t expected to see his District Leader run into a burning building and hadn’t expected the lurch in his stomach.

He doesn’t know how the fire started, but he had been walking Nabulungi home – it was probably a joke of Mr Hatimbi’s, especially as everyone knew that Arnold and Nabulungi were more than fellow missionaries and closer than friends, but still, when asked Kevin had done just that and was escorting the youngest Hatimbi home. They’d been talking about Arnold the whole way back. Once he had learnt not to put himself above other people, even unintentionally, Kevin realised just how much he liked people beyond the hypothetical.

And then, when he gets back there is fire. He saw the small gaggle, perhaps three or four of his fellow Elders already filing out, so Kevin turned tail and runs. He’s the only one with no smoke in his lungs, he was able to run the fastest. They needed help, they needed water. They might need medical assistance, hopefully not.

But still he ran.

And when he gets back Connor is running in.

Later he would say that he didn’t even think, but in truth he was thinking too much. He had to compartmentalise those feelings, not turning them off, he’d never done that and he didn’t agree with it as a practice. It just wasn’t healthy. And it constituted lying by omission; he might not be sure of anything, but Kevin Price still had a moral code. But he couldn’t help Connor if he was paralysed with fear and the burning in his stomach that must be anxiety. No. Not Connor.

Fires were usual. The village was prepared, amid their concern and their help there was probably a veil of disbelief that these boys could be so naive and so unprepared for the realities of the world. Kevin still found it hard to accept how little he actually, tangibly knew.

Everyone was accounted for, everyone was supported. A flourishing ecosystem of love and affection and, most importantly, safety. His friends were looking after each other, Nabulungi was with Arnold already. She had gone to him first.

Kevin has to go to Connor.

The water that he pours over himself isn’t cold by any means, but it is a jolt sending gooseflesh crawling up his skin. Ghail assures him that the can he was holding had been well washed out of the gasoline its label indicates that it once held, and boy, Kevin thinks with almost hysterical laughter bubbling up inside, wouldn’t that be an awkward thing for the other Elders to explain to his parents. He yanks his tie from around his neck to wrap around his mouth and nose, it’s the best he can do at short notice.

And he goes charging in.

There is the sound of burning, of the splintering of wood and coughing. Connor.

He can’t see, can’t think. Just reaches out and grabs. Pulling the heaving, near-sobbing mess of his District Leader into the blissfully still night air.

In the safety of outside Connor leans over coughing, there’s blood and Kevin is terrified all over again. Even more so when Connor’s shoulders go tight as though his fight or flight reactions have finally kicked in and as if he wishes to spring away from Kevin’s hand.

He doesn’t know what else to do, Gotswana is busy and all Kevin can do is rub his back and hope for now, and he can’t even do that.

“You don’t have to do that if you’re uncomfortable,” and that, that breaks his heart.

They all know about Connor. He’d not said anything explicitly, but he’d said before that he had been having gay thoughts and that he turned them off, and then he said that he wasn’t hiding himself any more, that he was letting everything out. And Kevin had just, assumed. Connor was just Connor, and Kevin was desperately pleased that he was alive.

The anger would be there, why would Connor run into a burning building? Did he want to hurt himself? Oh Heavenly Father did he  _ want _ to hurt himself? But the anger could come, would come when Connor’s breath didn’t rasp and blood wasn’t intermingled with his spit.

“I’m not.”

And then Gotswana is there, giving Connor oxygen and Kevin can’t stay. He’s got to  _ do _ something, he has to be some help. He’ll have time to think later.

The hut is in ruins but the fire has almost burnt itself out before the village started to tackle the blaze. There is remarkably little left of what had been the District Nine Mission Hut, perhaps that is a good thing, a fresh start.

Luckily none of them brought real personal possessions, the only things lost being supplies from the Mission President. Well, they aren’t technically on a mission any more. Arnold has the papers of the Book of Arnold. Schrader has - of all things - a suitcase, he was one of the last out before Connor dashed in– “I just grabbed everything I could that I thought might be important-“ he explains as he hands Elder Thomas a photo frame, Kevin doesn’t know what it’s a photograph of, but considering Thomas’ tears and thanks, he can make a smart guess.

It seems that the fire started by the kitchen so the personal rooms were the last to be engulfed, but even so Elder Schrader is apologising for not managing to save everything. He had saved more than enough, he had saved himself. He looks so guilty, but even as he apologises he’s handing Kevin his own battered copy of The Book of Mormon, which had been left by the side of his bed; his family had signed it with good luck for his mission, even Jack.

It is the stress that makes Kevin, finally, cry.

He hugs Elder Schrader, and Kevin isn’t the most physically affectionate person, he knows this. But his heart warms when Schrader hugs him back.

They’ve been brought together through this.

Connor is still breathing through oxygen, and they are now homeless. But at least they’re alive.

But they’re not homeless, and they’re not alone.

It’ll be like a sleepover, with all the Elders divvied up between the villagers. For the most part in this importune camping trip the Elders are planning on staying with their mission companions, except Kevin stands unconsciously closer to Connor and Mafala makes the choice for them.

“You two boys, with me and Nabulungi. Our Prophet and your other friend can stay with Kalimba tonight.”

“Oh, can they?”

Mafala is keeping an incredibly straight face, even as Kalimba is smiling through her outward expression of annoyance.

“I know what can happen after near death situations and we don’t want any little prophets running around here.”

“Baba!” Nabulungi is pulling a face at her father although she doesn’t remove her arm from where it is wrapped about Arnold’s shoulder, and Arnold looks fit to burst into flames himself in embarrassment.

A few shy giggles from the Elders and villagers alike and then Mafala laughs. As soon as he starts to chuckle then there’s an outpouring of slightly hysterical laughter. It makes a nice change from the tears, and Connor doubles over. For a moment Kevin is concerned, but he’s laughing too and Kevin is helping him up from the dust.

Kevin carries Connor’s oxygen for him, and he knows that he doesn’t need to, the tank isn’t that heavy and Connor certainly isn’t weak. But Kevin wants to do something on route to Mafala’s. He always wants to do something.

Later, in the hut. After they have been fed and watered and Connor has been told in no uncertain terms by Gotswana that he is an idiot, but a brave one and told to rest, they lay down, side by side, two by two on the floor. It isn’t uncomfortable, and while Kevin misses his mattresses, he appreciates what he has far more.

“Why did you run in there?”

Kevin thought that he would come out angry when he finally said it, but he’s just sad and scared.

“You scared me, Kevin Price,” Connor whispers back. The rasp has nearly entirely left his voice by now. The crack that remains reminds Kevin of his sixth grade teacher, smoked a pipe during recess and always picked Kevin to answer first.

“What?” Kevin is shocked, but not as shocked as when he hears Connor’s reasoning.

“I thought you were in there.”

“What?”

“I couldn’t see you outside, I thought that you’d gone in to get the medical bag – I should have done that – and I had to get you.” Connor shrugs, as though he hadn’t said something blatantly ridiculous and now that slight undercurrent of anger has come to the surface, but Kevin tries to suppress it because Mafala and Nabulungi are asleep and he doesn’t want to shout at Connor. He doesn’t want to be angry at all.

“So you thought you’d be a hero instead?”

He thinks he understands what his mom meant when Jack had chased off after a dog and became lost for twenty minutes at the park. She had screamed at him once they’d found him, but hugged him close and made him promise to never do that again. Perhaps Kevin was feeling something like that now.

“I just needed to save you.” Connor looks ashamed, and it is frankly the most ridiculous thing Kevin has ever heard over his pounding heart.

“Elder McKinley, Connor, you and this mission, Arnold and the others, you already did.”

He doesn’t know if it is Connor or himself who reaches out across between them in the silence that follows, but they’re holding hands. Holding tightly as though one of both of them may fall off an inevitable cliff. Maybe they’d fly.

There are no more words to say.

Kevin listens to the sounds of the village, the chirping and whistling, to the sounds of this room the rasping breathing in the night, Mafala’s snoring and Nabulungi’s gentle breathing. To the sounds of his heart.

Fire rejuvenates, enriches the land, and Connor’s hand is warm and perfect in his.


End file.
